A calm place to write.
Dust is a native, local-first writing app built around one obsession — a warm, distraction-free canvas that stays fast no matter how long the document runs. Plain Markdown, no clutter, no noise.
The web editor runs today — no account, no install. The Mac, iPad, and iPhone apps are still in private testing; write to support@dust.md and you'll hear when they open up.
Fast past fifty thousand words.
Most editors slow down as the page grows. Dust was built so it wouldn't.
A slow editor re-draws and re-styles the whole document on every keystroke — so the longer you write, the more it stutters. Dust renders only the part of the page you can actually see, and restyles only the paragraph you're editing. Typing and scrolling stay smooth across a fifty-thousand-word document, where heavier apps begin to lag. It's proven on real iPad hardware, not just in theory.
Calm by default.
Distraction-free isn't a mode you switch on. It's the whole room.
Everything, summoned
Library, keywords, versions, and export are one gesture away — and out of sight until you ask. A single quiet word count is the only stat that touches the page.
Yours, on your device
Your writing lives locally, on your own Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Sync keeps it in step across your devices, quietly, off the typing path — never a login wall between you and the page.
Just Markdown
Plain Markdown you already know, on a warm paper canvas with low-contrast, felt-more-than-seen highlighting. Snapshots save quietly as you write, so earlier drafts are always a click back.
What Dust leaves out.
Some of what keeps Dust calm is what it refuses to add — on purpose.
- noAI features. No autocomplete, no rewriting, no chatbot in the margin. The words are yours.
- noCommunity or social. No feed, no followers, no sharing pressure. Just you and the page.
- noReal-time collaboration. No cursors racing across your draft. Dust is a room for one.
- noStreaks or gamification. No badges, no guilt, no analytics-as-a-feature. Write when you write.
- noGrammar nagging. No squiggles second-guessing you mid-sentence. Edit on your own terms.
Your writing is yours — even if Dust disappears.
Dust is built and maintained by one person. That's worth being honest about: if this project ever winds down, your work shouldn't wind down with it.
So Dust is built export-first. Your writing lives on your own device, not sealed inside a service you have to keep paying to reach. Any sheet exports to plain Markdown or PDF at any time — no account required — so your words open in any editor, on any computer, with or without Dust installed.
No lock-in is the design, not a fallback. You should never feel like you have to stay just to keep what you wrote.